Frank Woods

Frank Woods (born 20 March 1930) is a former Master Sergeant of the US Marine Corps, [MACV-SOG]], and an operative of the CIA of the United States. Woods was a veteran of the Korean War, Bay of Pigs, Vietnam War, Angolan Civil War, Soviet-Afghan War, Nicaraguan Civil War, and Operation Just Cause.

Biography
Frank Woods was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 20 March 1930. Woods was a veteran of the Korean War while serving in the US Marine Corps, and he was made an operative of the Special Activities Division of the CIA after the war's end in 1953 due to his experience and skills. Woods was inserted with Alex Mason and Joseph Bowman in Santa Maria, Cuba during Operation 40 on 17 April 1961 on his first major operation outside of the US Marine Corps, and he was supposed to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro. Woods aided Mason in killing Castro's double in his mansion, but while Woods and Bowman escaped in a plane at a nearby hangar, Mason sacrificed himself to clear the runway with a ZPU, and Mason was captured and sent to a Soviet prison at Vorkuta. Woods took part in other operations for the CIA, and in November 1963, he and Bowman and Mason reunited during Operation Flashpoint at the Baikonur cosmodrome to destroy the Soviet Union's space program. During this operation, Woods attempted to assassinate General Nikita Dragovich, a Soviet general who President John F. Kennedy had ordered to be killed. Woods destroyed his limousine, but the kill was not verified.

Woods was later sent to South Vietnam in 1968 to assist the MACV-SOG branch of the CIA in their operations against North Vietnam and the Soviets in the Vietnam War. He aided in the defense of Khe Sanh alongside Mason, and the two led the counterattacks against the North Vietnamese Army. Woods used an ingenious strategy; in order to push the NVA out of their trenches, he cut open napalm barrels and kicked them into the trenches. He was saved from being shot by Mason at one point, and at the end of the battle of Khe Sanh, he was reunited with Bowman and introduced to CIA handler Jason Hudson. Woods was also sent to find a Russian defector in Hue City during the February 1968 battle of Hue, but the MACV compound burned down and the defector was killed. The SOG team narrowly escaped the city on a sampan, and Woods, Bowman, and Mason were dispatched to the DMZ to search for Colonel Lev Kravchenko (Dragovich's second-in-command) and his outpost.

The operation was a success, with the Soviet base being destroyed and the Viet Cong pushed out of their village, although Woods and Mason's helicopter was shot out of the sky. In a bloody battle, the village was cleared out and Woods called in Huey gunships, which destroyed Viet Cong positions on cliffsides. Woods, Bowman, and Mason also took part in a covert operation on the Mekong River in Laos in search of a crashed Soviet commercial airliner, but they were ambushed and captured by Soviet troops after taking PBRs down the Mekong and destroying NVA and Pathet Lao forces.

Woods, Mason, and Bowman were tortured in captivity by a Russian special forces operative and Viet Cong soldiers in a site on the Laos-Vietnam border. Bowman was killed while playing Russian Roulette with Woods and Mason, beaten to death by the Russian when he refused to play. Woods and Mason made their escape together and killed the Viet Cong in the caves as well as the Spetsnaz operative, and Woods was able to pilot an attack helicopter with Mason to destroy NVA outposts on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and to reach Kravchenko's compound. During the assault on Kravchenko's base, Woods was pushed through a window by Kravchenko, who set off a grenade. Woods was knocked out and thrown back into prison at the Hanoi Hilton.

For six months, Woods was kept in the North Vietnamese capital in a notorious prison camp for American POWs. After six months there, he was sent to Da Nang. One of seventeen prisoners, he was the last survivor by 1972, and he decided that he would not die in a swamp. He suffocated a guard with an M16 and escaped himself, making it to South Vietnam and back to the United States. Three years later, he was approached by the CIA and was invited to head to Angola to assist UNITA forces against the Soviets. Woods was captured by a Nicaraguan named Raul Menendez and tortured, kept in a shipping container with the rotting bodies of fellow US troops on board a ship on the Cubango River. In 1986, he was rescued by Alex Mason and Jason Hudson, who were able to kill the MPLA troops that captured him and carried him ashore. They escaped the MPLA onshore and were taken into a UNITA Mi-25 gunship, escaping. Woods returned to duty soon after, taking part in a mission to Afghanistan in later 1986 to find Menendez. He fought at the Battle of Khost alongside the Mujahideen, and he was again tortured, this time by the betraying Mujahideen. Woods and Mason were rescued by Afghan farmers, and he fought in the Nicaraguan Civil War against drug cartels led by Menendez. Woods accidentally killed Menendez's sister with a grenade, causing Menendez to blame Mason and attempt to kill him.

In 1989, Woods was captured in Panama after he was betrayed by Hudson, who had him shoot a blindfolded Mason - he was told that he was Raul Menendez, but he later found out that Menendez threatened to kill Mason's son if Hudson did not trick Woods. Hudson was killed soon after and Woods shot in both kneecaps with a shotgun, and he was later released. Woods lived in a place called "the Vault", a senior citizen home, where he lived to almost 100. In 2025, he helped Alex Mason's son David Mason in hunting down Menendez, giving him information in many recorded sessions.